Greetings again, my Earthlings! It’s been just over three months since my last character profile, and a lot has happened since then! For one, I’ve both dipped out of and come back to Newgrounds, and I’ve given all of my playlists some personality with their own custom icons (yes, I know I mention the custom icons a lot, but it’s something I’m pretty proud of). Anyway, if you’ve read the last character profile on Zoe, then you’ll know exactly who’s coming up next, and who better to talk about for our No. 2 spot than Candlestick Road’s other main character? Get ready to bounce around and wave your tiny little retractable arms in excitement because…

It's Blip!

([Candlestick Road] Blip - Reference 1)

The basics

Full name: Blip

Species: Blob

Gender: Male

Age (in human years): 21

Height: 0’10” (25.4cm)

Backstory

Blip was put up for adoption early at birth by his parents, who were unable to afford the costs of raising another child. As such, he never knew his birth parents, although he hopes to find them one day.

It just so happened that, around the same time, a family of robots from the nearby county of Electropolis were looking to try their hand at raising a biological being. They saw the young blob at the orphanage and, feeling sorry for his circumstances, decided to adopt him. Robots typically name themselves after electrical/computer terms, and since he didn’t already have a name, his new family decided to name him “Blip”, as he was the metaphorical ‘blip’ in the family. As part of the adoption, the family moved from Electropolis to the town of Appleton, nearly halfway across the planet.

Blip was raised in a way that could only be described as strict, but also loving. He was home-schooled by his parents, as they didn’t want to put him at risk of being bullied. He was never allowed out on his own, and when he did go out with his parents, it would only be to places that they thought were the safest and friendliest. He was taught to always be happy, to always look at the brighter side of things, and to appreciate what he had and never envy the possessions of others.

However, blobs naturally crave socialisation, and the way Blip was raised, he started to feel deprived. As such, while his parents were out, Blip would regularly sneak out of the house and into Appleton’s town centre, where he hoped to interact with the locals and make a few friends. This didn’t go exactly to plan; many people ended up just finding Blip annoying, although that didn’t seem to faze him. Still, even if he didn’t end up making any friends, he really enjoyed exploring every nook and cranny of his hometown, and this instilled a sense of adventure into him that would only grow as he got older.

Through all this, Blip found a mentor in his robotic brother, Byte. Byte knew about Blip’s secret adventures and did his best in giving him advice on how to interact with others and generally survive in the real world, although even he had his limits.

Eventually, Blip got old enough to move out of the house and live on his own. But he didn’t decide to get a house or an apartment or anything like that. Inspired by the adventures he had while his parents weren’t looking, he decided to live a nomadic lifestyle, feeding on the dirt and soil (as all blobs do) and sleeping anywhere he could find. His parents were unsure about this, but they decided that as long as he was happy, who were they to object?

This is how Blip would live his life for the next few years or so. He spent his days exploring Appleton, taking in the scenery, feeding off of the soil as mentioned before, and still trying to interact with the citizens of the town. Unfortunately, in pursuit of this task, he would end up crossing paths with some... not-so-nice people. Let’s just say both of his eyes used to work.

Around the time Blip met Zoe, however, he could feel his happy and energetic personality starting to fade. He had been living like this for around 3 years now, he explored pretty much all of Appleton and its surrounding areas, and he still hadn’t managed to make himself a friend. For the first time, Blip was starting to doubt if his life was actually going anywhere. One day, he was taking a slow bounce along a path near the town park, when, due to his small size, he accidentally tripped up a triangle on their way home from work. Little did Blip know, this is where his old, uncertain life would end, and a brand new one would begin.

Appearance

Blip is a blob of a deep purple colour. Like all blobs, he has extendable arms on both sides of his body; however, he was born with a defect, meaning he can only extend his right arm to about half the length of his left one. He is blind in his left eye as the result of an injury.

Personality

Blip is an energetic character with an excitable personality. He is an adventuring type, and loves to discover new places and try new things, sometimes to the annoyance of Zoe.

Blip is a fiercely positive and optimistic character. He worries about very little, and will quite literally smile in the face of a bad situation. Whenever Zoe or anyone else is feeling down, he will try his best to comfort them and get a smile back on their face. However, he will occasionally wonder where his birth parents may be.

Role in the series

Blip, along with Zoe, serves as one of the two main characters of Candlestick Road. In contrast to Zoe, who is markedly more average and plain, Blip is a character with a unique and unconventional way of life, who is able to help Zoe see her world in a different way. However, Blip is not without his own problems, which become much more apparent as the story progresses. While he may seem like an unstoppable positive force in the beginning, over time he ends up learning just as much about life as his friend.

Creation & development

As weird as it may seem, Blip almost didn’t exist. I mentioned in my Introducing Candlestick Road article that I was going through a bit of a robot phase around the time the series was being created, and as such, the initial concept of the series was that a little robot would be teaching a bigger character about the joys of life.

I had a file, bot_concept.kra, ready to go in order to design this character. However, I was having trouble deciding what this hypothetical robot character would look like, and for whatever reason I decided I would sketch out a blob-shaped character in the meantime. After about 10 minutes or so I came out with this:

I had decided midway through the drawing process that the character would have a defect with its arms, so that’s been with him since the very beginning. I was proud of this little guy I had drawn, but I was still unsure on whether or not to go with him instead of the robot. I did actually end up designing a robot character, however:

([Concept] Triangle and Blob/Bot)

Yep, you read that right. This is what we could have gotten instead of Blip. I don’t think I need to tell you what decision I ended up making. I’m glad I did, because having the character be a biological being instead of a machine opens up the opportunity for a lot more complex stories and emotions that a robot just wouldn’t be able to have.

As for the blob’s name, I chose Blip sometime after I had come up with the idea of him being raised by robots. He was always meant to be the metaphorical ‘blip’ in an otherwise all-robot family, hence the name. I don’t think I came up with any other names for him; he’s just always been Blip.

Trivia

• Blip used to keep a pet rock he called Rocko, but it got taken from him a while by some bad people. He doesn't expect to ever see him again.
• Blip's favourite place in Appleton is the park. He likes walking around, relaxing on the benches... and apparently it has some good dirt.
• Blip enjoys watching TV as much as Zoe, but his favourite TV show is Yellow n' Green, a show about a big yellow character and his tiny green best friend.

Conclusion

Blip is a unique character. Initially developed as the stark opposite to Zoe in both appearance and personality, I feel as if he has since grown into so much more, although of course you’ve yet to see it. Blip represents the one little bit of childlike wonder we all still have in us, something we could all do with tuning back into every once in a while.

And with that, both of Candlestick Road’s main characters have been done, meaning, for the time being at least, it’s time to move over to another project. You know, I’ve been working pretty hard on that robot and his alien friend lately; their history, personality and all. How about we give one of them a shot?

Ready for a particularly cubic character profile soon? See you for #3!